By: Mark Glennon
You’re not alone if you thought Brandon Johnson’s chances of winning Chicago’s mayoral election were gone when it came out last week that he’s not big on paying his personal bills.
But it turned out that that’s apparently a qualifier now, and that Johnson had the smarts to know how today’s Chicago voters think. He paid off the bills after being exposed and said, “Look, having student debt and credit card debt, that makes me a Chicagoan.”
Yes, you’re now a real Chicagoan if you’re what used to be called a deadbeat. A veritable man of the people.
Here are the details:
As reported Thursday, Johnson then owed $3,357.04 in unpaid water and sewer charges. A payment of $91.08 On February 13, 2023 was the first on his water bill since June 22, 2022. Since 2010, Johnson had run up $6,661.70 in fines and penalties for nonpayment. He also owed the City of Chicago $1,044.58 in unpaid traffic tickets from 2014 and 2015. CBS also reported that in 2016, Johnson defaulted on a Capital One credit card obligation of more than $3,600.
That’s despite earning at least $188,000 per year since at least 2019 from the Chicago Teachers Union and his position as Cook County Commissioner. He also has a pension reportedly worth at least $1.1 million that he got through a loophole, for just four years of teaching.
Times have changed.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
What a schmuck.
He also lives in Lombard with a barely inhabitable house in the Austin district.
“Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.”
Considering Chicago, Dante had a dire warning.
Reminds me of “Ozymandias”
He’s just a figure head and the Cook County president is in charge
That may be overstating it but that’s very important. Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle does not get the blame she deserves. She has her hands in everything and she, too, is a radical leftist.
The new “Chicago way”?
We live in an era of lost personal responsibility and accountability. This is built on the constant drumbeat of blame-shifting to “oppressive capitalism” and “systemic racism.”
When your teachers act like your friends and tell you that everything is the “system” oppressing you, then you will of course behave like this.
It is as if none of these people have ever read a page of history, or understand how all of this is going to end.
Frequent cannabis user. I have a feeling Johnson time as mayor will make Lightfoot look like a thoughtful conservative.
I’d like to know how he could work for the CTU and the county at the same time. And now that’s he’s the mayor, is he going to give up the CTU gig?
Stan, occasionally you read about triple dippers….
I can’t wait for the ghetto to be built on LaSalle St.
His demonstrated casual attitude towards his personal debts and obligations sadly exposes his true character. But his deadbeat nature isn’t surprising, just further proof, that his past “reparations” and “theft is restorative justice” rhetoric is characteristic of an opportunistic scammer.
Being a deadbeat is the sign of being a good Democrat, or at least a good black Democrat. Look at the examples of Al Sharpton, Stacy Abrams, Jesse Jackson Sr. and Jr., and the list goes on. Paying taxes and paying bills is for the pleebs, not the Socialist leaders.
Harold Washington still had unpaid hotel bills from the old Roosevelt Hotel in Springfield when he passed away.
In days gone by, they shut off the water supply to dead beats. it worked people paid up.
But water is now a human right, they say.
Apparently everything we work and save for is someone else’s human right: water, housing, food, transportation, medical care, etc.
Something really bad is happening – citizen apathy and a corrupt media are inviting a seismic change to our culture: the governor illegally avoids property taxes and the mayor-elect doesn’t pay his bills.
I think I’ll buy stock in U-Haul.
Entitlement comes in many forms. Using other people’s money, either as a dues-consuming CTU activist, a budget-busting city mayor or a delinquent credit card holder, it’s a matter of how many zeroes you can get your hands on. Johnson’s hit the jackpot with this latest gig. Let’s go Brandon!
I’m a little surprised he’s not claiming his debts are because he’s a victim of some kind of systemic racist something or other? Come on Brandon get with the program!!
It seems like Johnson either doesn’t appreciate the value of a dollar enough to pay on time in order to avoid costly penalties and fees, or he was able to get himself off the hook from paying some of the penalties.
Unless he has since paid the defaulted credit credit card balance, he might not even use a credit card.
Being Had – you can bet his behavior has impacted his credit score. Now it may not matter to him now but to scores of people credit scores matter. I don’t like our debt fueled lifestyles, but having poor credit is a recipe for a high teen percentage (or higher) subprime auto loan. People stuck in these situations find it difficult to ever get ahead. His delinquencies are not an absent minded quirk. With his salary he could have easily paid these bills.
The State of Illinois is also a dead beat.
Dead beat is official policy.
For sure, it’s a pathetic state of affairs. I heard parts of his speech today. It should have been entitled Stoke and Divide.
How the worm turns – now he owns it. As leader of the city, he will need people to pay their bills, while he personally set the example that it is okay to skate by without paying. Think about it – would he have ever paid them if he didn’t think he had high odds of becoming mayor? Given this set up, using BJ as a role model, why would the average person think paying their bills is necessary? Just skate like BJ did. Good luck.
Yep, it reminds me of a story in Detroit in the 80s when Mayor Coleman was caught salmon fishing without a fishing license. He quipped that he “didn’t believe in fishing licenses and never had.”
He set a bad example for the ordinary citizen to buy a fishing license and set wildlife conservation back 10 years.